Debbie from East York, Ontario has a problem with a basement leak that apparently is caused by a crack between the sidewalk and the wall. Her contractor patched it last year, but it leaked again.If there is any movement of the sidewalk, from frost or just swelling and or shrinking clay, then no ...
Martin went to renovate his basement and discovered that he had rotten out 2x6's right in his concrete basement floor. He thought that they simply left the forms for the footing in place when they poured the floor slab. This sounded a bit strange so I sent him the first graphic above that shows ...
Brian from Cornwall, Ontario just bought a house and when it rains heavily, it flows in the basement. Someone recommended that he dig a trench inside the basement to drain the water away.First of all, see if simply landscaping sloping away from the house, and rain gutters and downspouts away fro...
Tony in Burlington has extremely small (8" x 31") basement windows (that sounds more like a gun turret than a window) and he wants to make them bigger. If he cuts into the concrete and makes them bigger will he need reinforcement for new vinyl windows?If existing windows are showing no signs of ...
One of our viewers asked about sound proofing a basement room. That is a big topic but here is some information.The QUALITY of sound in a room is the subject of ACOUSTICS, not sound proofing. Acoustical tiles and sponges on the walls do not do much to stop noise movement to or from the rest of ...
Kathy writes: "My electrical box is located in the "finished" half of my basement, however it is attached to the bare cement block wall and has a particle board cupboard built over it. I am getting cold air from the wall and presumably moisture as well. How do I insulate this cupboard and since...
Yes you can, but it is not always easy to do. The joists may not be perfectly spaced and you only have a 1-1/2 inch target for attaching two edges of the drywall. As well, the floor joists are often not perfectly on the same plane, with one or more of the floor joists being slightly lower or hi...
Tom from Thomasburg, Ontario writes: "I'm thinking about buying a house, however the basement has low ceilings. Is it possible to bust out the cement floor instead of jacking up the house?"Yes you can dig down, but you need to be aware of just how the soil under the house supports the house. Al...
Last year we shot a special Spring Clean-Up show and in that show we cleaned up some mould on the lower walls of one of our viewer's basement. Recently we went back to permanently solve that problem by installing an exhaust fan that would draw the cold moist air off of the basement floor, doing ...
No flooring company recommends any kind of wooden floor in a bathroom, and even fewer (fewer than no?) who would recommend it in a basement bathroom where you might not only have water constantly spilling from the top but maybe moisture coming up from the floor.You want to do it anyway? OK, here...
